The current counties of England are defined by the ceremonial counties, a collective name for the county areas to which are appointed a Lord Lieutenant. The office of Lord Lieutenant was created in the reign of Henry VIII. The Lord Lieutenant is the chief officer of the county and representative of the Crown. Whenever the Queen visits an area she will be accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of that area. Legally the ceremonial counties are defined by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as ‘Counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies in Great Britain’ with reference to the areas used for local government.

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https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/products/boundary-line#technical

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Source:

https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/BoundaryLine

Licence:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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A PDF map that shows the counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at 1 April 2023. (File Size - 583 KB)

In 2024, over nine million people lived in Greater London, making it the most populated ceremonial county in England. The West Midlands Metropolitan County, which contains the large city of Birmingham, was the second-largest county at just over 3.03 million, closely followed by Greater Manchester at three million, and then West Yorkshire with a population of 2.4 million. Kent, Essex, and Hampshire were the three next-largest counties in terms of population, each with just over 1.9 million people. A patchwork of regions England is just one of the four countries that compose the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with England, Scotland and Wales making up Great Britain. England is therefore not to be confused with Great Britain or the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England, the next subdivisions are the nine regions of England, containing various smaller units such as unitary authorities, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The counties in this statistic, however, are based on the ceremonial counties of England as defined by the Lieutenancies Act of 1997. Regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland Like England, the other countries of the United Kingdom have their own regional subdivisions, although with some different terminology. Scotland’s subdivisions are council areas, while Wales has unitary authorities, and Northern Ireland has local government districts. As of 2024, the most-populated Scottish council area was Glasgow City, with over 650,000 inhabitants. In Wales, Cardiff had the largest population among its unitary authorities, and in Northern Ireland, Belfast was the local government area with the most people living there.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities in the United Kingdom, as at December 2019. The boundaries available are: (BUC) Ultra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark). Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights. Download File SizesUltra Generalised (500m) - clipped to the coastline (200 KB)Units for the following fields:St_length = metresSt_area = metres2REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE View Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireView REST URL of ArcGIS for INSPIRE Feature Download Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/MapServer/exts/InspireFeatureDownload REST URL of Feature Access Service https://ons-inspire.esriuk.com/arcgis/rest/services/Administrative_Boundaries/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2019_Boundaries_UK_BUC2/FeatureServer

Counties were formerly administrative units across the whole of the UK. Due to various administrative restructurings, however, the only administrative areas still referred to as 'counties' are the Non-Metropolitan Districts of England. The English Metropolitan Districts, although no longer administrative units, are also used for statistical purposes.

The Counties area list contains 35 areas of the following constituent English geographies:

• 27 Shire counties
• 6 Metropolitan counties
• Inner London and Outer London

Please visit ONS Beginner's Guide to UK Geography for more info.

The boundaries are available as either extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands) or

clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for Counties and Unitary Authorities, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2024.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised (20m) - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Counties_and_Unitary_Authorities_December_2024_Boundaries_UK_BGC/MapServer

The Vice County system for Great Britain was devised by an English botanist, Hewett Cottrell Watson, for the purposes of illustrating plant distributions These digitised boundaries are available free-of-charge as a download to recorders, mapping scheme organisers, local record centres and others. This download will contain 3 datasets, an outline of GB, a zip containing individual Vice Counties and a zip containing all Vice Counties as 1 shapefile. 3 and 12 mile offshore limits are included in each zip. Data sourced from http://www.nbn.org.uk/SpecialPages/WVCB-Download.aspx and released under an Open Government Licence. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2013-10-31 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-22.

The index shows the availability of county series geological maps, 1:10560 scale. The maps themselves were produced on OS County Series sheets between approximately 1860 and 1960. The list indicates whether the map has been revised or re-surveyed and gives details of any later versions that have been produced. It is advisable to discuss your requirements before ordering or travelling to view these maps.

This data shows the counties and unitary authorities of Great Britain for 2012. The attached Layer File can be used to symbolise the different types of boundaries (Non-Metropolitan Counties/Metropolitan Counties/Unitary Authorities/Council Areas/Greater London). A JPEG image of the map is also contained in the download. This dataset was made from the OS OpenData Boundary Line product: http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/boundary-line/index.html. GIS vector data. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2012-05-10 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.

A PDF map that shows the local authority districts, counties and unitary authorities in the United Kingdom as at April 2023. The map has been created to show the United Kingdom from country level down to local authority district level. (File Size - 1,909 KB)

The Crop Map of England (CROME) is a polygon vector dataset mainly containing the crop types of England. The dataset contains approximately 32 million hexagonal cells classifying England into over 20 main crop types, grassland, and non-agricultural land covers, such as Woodland, Water Bodies, Fallow Land and other non-agricultural land covers. The classification was created automatically using supervised classification (Random Forest Classification) from the combination of Sentinel-1 Radar and Sentinel-2 Optical Satellite images during the period late January 2019 – September 2019. The dataset was created to aid the classification of crop types from optical imagery, which can be affected by cloud cover. The results were checked against survey data collected by field inspectors and visually validated. The data has been split into the Ordnance Survey Ceremonial Counties and each county is given a three letter code. Please refer to the CROME specification document to see which county each CODE label represents.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for the historical administrative counties with county boroughs in England and Wales as at Census Day 1921.The boundaries available are: (BGC) Generalised resolution - clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of WFS Server – https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilities

REST URL of Map Server – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/MapServer

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/ADCTYCB_JUN_1921_EW_BGC/FeatureServer

The Crop Map of England (CROME) is a polygon vector dataset mainly containing the crop types of England. The dataset contains approximately 32 million hexagonal cells classifying England into over 15 main crop types, grassland, and non-agricultural land covers, such as Woodland, Water Bodies, Fallow Land and other non-agricultural land covers. The classification was created automatically using supervised classification (Random Forest Classification) from the combination of Sentinel-1 Radar Satellite time series images during the period January 2024 – August 2024. The dataset was created to aid the classification of crop types from optical imagery, which can be affected by cloud cover. The results were checked against survey data collected by field inspectors and visually validated. The data has been split into the Ordnance Survey Ceremonial Counties and each county is given a three letter code. Please refer to the CROME specification document to see which county each CODE label represents. Attribution statement: © Rural Payments Agency copyright and/or database right 2024. All rights reserved.

For much of the Geological Survey's existence, the County Series of maps were the standard large-scale maps on which geological mapping was undertaken. These maps are based on the Ordnance Survey County (or six-inch to the mile) series of maps. These maps were cut up to be used in the field to record geological observations, and on return to the office, the geology was transferred to a complete County Series map, which after approval was known as a 'standard' (England / Wales) or 'clean copy' (Scotland). This dataset contains the 'standard' or 'clean copy' County Series maps held by BGS. Geological maps represent a geologist's compiled interpretation of the geology of an area. A geologist will consider the data available at the time, including measurements and observations collected during field campaigns, as well as their knowledge of geological processes and the geological context to create a model of the geology of an area. This model is then fitted to a topographic basemap and drawn up at the appropriate scale, with generalization if necessary, to create a geological map, which is a representation of the geological model. Explanatory notes and vertical and horizontal cross sections may be published with the map. Geological maps may be created to show various aspects of the geology, or themes. The most common map themes held by BGS are solid (later referred to as bedrock) and drift (later referred to as superficial). These maps are hard-copy paper records stored in the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) and are delivered as digital scans through the BGS website.

The Land Cover Map 2024 (UK Land Cover Statistics) dataset summarises the coverage of different land cover types across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, classified into 21 UKCEH land cover classes, based upon Biodiversity Action Plan broad habitats. This data is provided in both .csv and geopackage (vector) formats. Statistics are calculated at country, county, and regional (England only) levels from the Land Cover Map 2024 (10 m classified pixels) datasets for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A full description of this and all UKCEH LCM2024 products are available from the LCM2024 product documentation. In addition to UKCEH as copyright holders, the Land Cover Map 2024 (UK Land Cover Statistics) products use digital boundary products and reference maps. The source of the data is the Office for National Statistics and they are licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. They contain OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2024].

1:1,000,000 raster map series showing the counties of Northern Ireland. This raster is the smallest scale OSNI raster product giving an overview of Northern Ireland.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County and Unitary Authorities including Metropolitan Counties, in the United Kingdom, as at December 2022.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/Upper_Tier_Local_Authorities_inc_Metropolitan_Counties_December_2022_Boundaries_UK_BFE/MapServer

In the middle of 2001 Roger Kain and Richard Oliver, from the University of Exeter, published a substantial work entitled Historic Parishes of England and Wales: Electronic Map - Gazetteer- Metadata. This was the final product of a project aimed at locating and mapping the boundaries of parish and sub-parish units of the mid-nineteenth century. The authors published the results in a series of electronic maps supplied on CD-ROM. Each one of these 115 maps contain a scanned 1”:1 mile OS New Popular Series map, overlain by the boundaries. A reference number can be found in each of the polygons that can then be used to look up information about that parish in gazetteer in an accompanying book.

A major limitation of this work is that although the boundaries are in digital form, they are divided into 115 tiles, none of which have any spatial co-ordinate information inherent in them. This means that although the maps are invaluable as a reference tool, they can not be used together within a GIS to select, analyse and present historic information.

We have therefore created a single digital map of the boundaries to provide a single, continuous coverage of polygons, each of which contain the information provided by Kain and Oliver in their accompanying book. This information includes the parish name, Ancient County, and a reference number that coincides with entries for that parish in the 1851 census report.

It is recommended that users also order disc 1 of study 4348; Historic Parishes of England and Wales : an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

This file contains the digital vector boundaries for County Electoral Division, in England, as at May 2023.The boundaries available are: (BFE) Full resolution - extent of the realm (usually this is the Mean Low Water mark but in some cases boundaries extend beyond this to include off shore islands).Contains both Ordnance Survey and ONS Intellectual Property Rights.

REST URL of Feature Access Service – https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/County_Electoral_Division_May_2023_Boundaries_EN_BFE/FeatureServerREST URL of WFS Server –https://dservices1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/services/County_Electoral_Division_May_2023_Boundaries_EN_BFE/WFSServer?service=wfs&request=getcapabilitiesREST URL of Map Server –https://services1.arcgis.com/ESMARspQHYMw9BZ9/arcgis/rest/services/County_Electoral_Division_(May_2023)_Boundaries_EN_BFE/MapServer